‘Mad Men’ Recap: Season 7, Episode 6 ‘The Strategy’

Editor’s Note: Every Sunday after the newest episode of “Mad Men,” lawyer and Supreme Court advocate Walter Dellinger will host an online dialogue about the show. Other participants include Columbia University history professor Alan Brinkley and Columbia University film and television professor Evangeline Morphos. Our panelists will post thoughts after the episode ends at 11 p.m or sometime the next day. Readers are invited to join in with their thoughts in the comments section.

Walter Dellinger, Supreme Court Advocate

For several weeks, I’ve thought that this show was wandering about with no discernable narrative arc. I literally had nothing to say about last week’s episode. But tonight’s episode seemed to recover a bit of the magic of the show at its best.

Bob’s grasping need for cover for his homosexuality and Peggy’s need to step aside for a more “authoritative” male to make the client presentation both seemed rightly situated in the era. But more than anything what gave depth to this episode was the wonderful construct of “family.”

All the actual, traditional families are separated in this story. Pete has been ousted by his wife, and barely recognized by his daughter. His relationship with Bonnie seems over, as she flies back West, on the same plane as Megan who leaves Don behind in New York. But in the very end the most unlikely family tableaux is constructed – Don, Peggy and Pete dining at Burger King. Don makes a gesture suggesting that Pete has ketchup on his cheek, and Peggy offers at napkin. As I write that, I realize that a written description can’t do justice to that the scene.

Framed in the picture window of a fast food restaurant, the last scene reflects not so much the anomie of an Edward Hopper, but something closer to the warmth of a Norman Rockwell. There is a glimmer of hope for connectedness in this harsh modern world after all.

Evangeline Morphos, Columbia University Film/TV Professor

“The Strategy” is one of those near-perfect (why hedge?)—perfect—episodes that reminds us of the spine of this extraordinary series.

“Mad Men” has always been about answering the question posed in the first episode of Season 4 when a reporter from The Wall Street Journal asks: “Who is Don Draper?” Don had to answer that question for himself, before the series could answer it for the audience. Last week’s meeting with Phillip Morris assured us that Don had come out the other side of his dark journey of self-acceptance. For the first time Don was selling himself—not just the image he would create for the ad campaign.

Don embraced his past (in this case, the diatribe he had written against the tobacco industry) and made it a selling point about the future.

The next challenge for Don Draper is to find a place to land—to find a home, a family. Beginning with the Kodak Carousel pitch, Don has struggled to find a place for the emotional yearning he feels; and he understands that, by extension, everyone has that same yearning. Don’s ad campaigns have been stepping stones along his personal journey. His ads had the skill to express what an individual wants—“even before he knows he wants it.”

For each of the characters, this episode is about finding a family—coming “home”. The advertising execs of SC(D)P –yes, I’m putting the “D” back in the title– have been selling the concept of the American family all along; but as Peggy says: “Does this family exist anymore? Are there people who eat dinner and smile at each other instead of watching T.V.?”

The answer to that question is “yes.” The final image of the episode shows us a family—Don, Peggy, Pete—who are bound by love, loyalty, and a shared passion for the work they do. Walter, I, too, was struck by the genuine intimacy of that small gesture of Don signaling to Pete that he had ketchup on his cheek. It’s what a loving parent does, or an irritated spouse. It’s a gesture you make to a family member.

Don, Pete and Peggy reach that family dinner after several unsuccessful family configurations. Throughout the episode, Pete is torn between his sexy, demanding mistress and his wife and daughter; and he ends up rejecting and being rejected by both. Even though Don and Megan are having passionate sex each night, she is in the process of moving out of Don’s life. (Taking the fondue pot back to L.A. is the final signal.) Peggy is lying about her age because she is afraid her chance for a family has passed her by; yet, she has refused to visit Ginsburg in the hospital.

Equally powerful in this episode are the stories of those characters to search for family, and can’t find one. Bob Benson returns from Detroit and when realizes he is about to be made an offer at Buick, he proposes to Joan. “You don’t want this,” Joan answers, aware of his homosexuality. Even though Benson counters that Buick “wants a certain kind of executive,” his next lines are closer to the truth: “We could comfort each other through an uncertain world.” Isn’t that a definition of family? I ache for the impossibility of Benson’s yearning for family. He cannot achieve it in 1969. I also ache for the impossibility of Joan find the “love” she is waiting for.

As the characters are searching for family, they are also searching for their own voice. In this episode Peggy finally, and authentically, comes up with her first real ad campaign. Frustrated that the campaign doesn’t really work, she rails at Don: “You really want to help me—show me how you think.” Rather than “showing” her, Don allows her to find her own way to an emotional place that speaks to her.

In describing her connection to Burger Chef , she says: “You are surrounded by all kinds of mother’s who work.” What she connects to is an extension of her own needs–”What if there was a place where you could go, and you were sitting with family.” In the background Frank Sinatra”s “My Way’ plays on the radio. When Peggy complains that the song is everywhere, Don answers “There’s a reason for that.” As much as this episode is about family, it is also about finding one’s own path—accepting it, and following it.

Perhaps more moving than the last image of the episode is the image of Don and Peggy dancing—close, loving, if not in love. As the camera pulls back, Benson is alone in his office, standing with his face to the wall. These are the two images of the world of 1969—those who can find comfort in each other, and those who are struggling to find a place.

Alan Brinkley, Columbia University History Professor

I agree with Walter. For the last few weeks, the agency and the narrative seemed to be falling apart. The newer characters who were taking over, didn’t seem to have much interest in their work, and Don and Peggy were left behind. But this week brought us a powerful episode, bringing together the major figures we have been following throughout the series: Joan, Peggy, Pete, and Don.

The episode gives us an update on the emotional lives of these characters.

Joan – still lonely – seemed to enjoy the warmth which Bob Benson brought back into her life. But when he proposed, even though she was touched, she turns him down: “You don’t want this!” she says, referring to his homosexuality. It’s not clear whether Bob will disappear from the show, but it is clear he will disappear from Joan’s life.

Pete still wants to get his wife back, but she insists on a divorce. Pete is furious with her for throwing him out of the house, even though he is living with his mistress in California, and even though he seems to pay little attention to his daughter.

And Don is staying in New York while Megan is moving out again to California. There is no real relationship between them; and after a romantic breakfast, Don goes to work, and Megan leaves on a flight to L.A.

Peggy continues to be deeply unhappy. She thinks she has been left behind now that Don has come back. Every time she starts a meeting, she fears that if Don is in the room, he will take over. Peggy tries to distance herself from him as much as possible.

These characters are isolated from each other throughout the first part of the episode; but suddenly, things change. Peggy, dissatisfied with her Burger Chef pitch struggles to find a better one—one with more emotional resonance. She keeps coming back to the idea that the restaurant is a place where families go. Peggy asks Don the central question of the episode—and one each of us has cited: “..Are there people who eat dinner and smile at each other instead of watching TV?”

But she goes on to ask Don a deeper, more personal question: “What was home like?” “I can’t remember,” Don answers.

Despite the problems between Peggy and Don, the two of them dance together – not in any sexual way, but simply not to be alone.

None of these characters have any real family. But finally, sitting in Burger Chief, Peggy, Pete, and Don are together as if at home — restoring the “family” of the agency. We’ve been waiting for this to happen.

Gwen Orel, ‘Mad Men’ Recapper

This episode is called “Strategy,” and there’s a lot of it going on. Pete and Bonnie come east—she uses some strategy on him on the plane, initiating mile-high sex, which is something he’s always wanted to try—to get him to hurry a divorce along.

And at the office, Pete employs some strategy to bump Don up a notch or two. He does this by inviting Don to the Burger Chef meeting, when it should be just accounts and Harry. Lou’s nonplussed. Peggy’s presentation is a storyboard of a family going to Burger Chef and being surprised by meeting Dad there. At a follow-up meeting with just Lou, Pete and Peggy, Pete plays his second card by saying Don should deliver the presentation, if Peggy agrees. When Lou demurs, Pete says, “You’ve never seen Don at his best. It’ll be a tear-jerker.” Peggy can be the voice of the mom. “It’s your decision,” a voice says out of nowhere. It’s Ted, on the speakerphone. Peggy agrees, but when she leaves the room, her eyes could kill.

When she tells Don, she pretends it was her idea. She tells him to do that thing where he gives the tag like he just thought of it. “Do I do that?” he says. Heh. And then he has another idea he was just noodling around with. What about doing it from the kid’s point of view? McDonald’s, anyone? After she leaves, Don slams his fist with delight. He’s back!

Jim’s strategy is still to get Commander to oust Don. He drops a name at Roger, but Roger calls it “your secret plan to win the war.” Roger figured out something from Jim from McCann in a steam room that morning, but it isn’t clear what.

Bob Benson also strategizes to leverage a better life for himself. He bails out a Chevy guy from jail, arrested for making homosexual advances to a cop. In return the guy tells him that Chevy is dropping SCP to go in-house, and that Buick is going to make a big offer to Bob. So what does Bob do? Try to become the perfect executive by proposing to Joan. She knows he’s gay, though, and wants love, not an arrangement, so she dismisses him.

Pete visits little Tammy in Cos Cob, who’s shy of him, and is put out that Trudy’s not there. When Trudy returns later from her date, he scolds her, playing the big husband, because they aren’t divorced yet. That doesn’t work, and it also sours things between him and Bonnie, because Pete is not a great date the rest of the time.

Megan is up to something: she visits New York, ostensibly to pick up some summer clothes, but she’s also getting a bunch of other stuff to bring to L.A. She keeps saying she misses Don, but she’s acting distant. Peggy wakes up in the middle of the night, and throws her notes down. The next day she calls Stan, but he’s going to see his girlfriend (it’s the weekend). She calls Don at home, where Megan is making the famous spaghetti, just to tell him his idea is bad.

But this all leads to a wonderful rapprochement when she solicits his help, in a grumpy way. She insists he tell her how he thinks. He says “it has to be what you want,” and then says first he abuses the people whose help he needs, then he takes a nap. She smiles and says, “done.” We learn that she turned 30 a few weeks ago—which maybe explains her grumpiness. They go through a brainstorming process. She wonders, “does this family exist anymore? People who eat dinner and smile, instead of staring at the TV?” And that leads to the brilliant idea to make the pitch about family.

“My Way” comes on the radio, and Don asks her to dance. Are they end game after all? She leans on him, and he kisses the top of her head.

There’s a partners meeting about the loss of Chevy, and the promotion of Harry to partner. Joan’s furious, and storms in to Roger’s office. He’s mad she knew about Chevy first, but when she tells him she learned from Bob, Roger realizes what the steam room friend was getting at: McCann’s afraid they’ll steal Buick.

The final bit of strategy: Peggy and Don meet with Pete at Burger Chef. Peggy wants to shoot the ad there. Every table here is the family table, she says. Pete’s not convinced and says, “tell her, Don.” Don supports Peggy.

The camera pulls back and we see lots of happy families and couples holding hands.